


Cautionary Tales

by KiaraSayre



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Aftermath, Amnesia, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 20:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiaraSayre/pseuds/KiaraSayre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Artie, after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cautionary Tales

**Author's Note:**

> Contains major spoilers for 4x10, "We All Fall Down," and will probably also make no sense without that context. 
> 
> **Warnings** : Deals extensively with canonical violence, death, and various other traumas (including mind control), as well as mentions of non-canonical character deaths, some of which are violent. Will probably (definitely) be Jossed as soon as the show comes back.

Claudia is nothing like James.

Where Claudia takes the stairs of life three steps at a time, James put his foot down with deliberation, every time. Where Claudia says damn the consequences no matter what they are, James took no risks he didn't first calculate. Where Claudia hugs and yells and streaks herself into her hair with a different color every week, James played his face like a marionette and showed exactly what he wanted to show, nothing more and nothing less.

But there's still something about Claudia that reminds him of James, just a little bit. Maybe it's the steel in her spine, the way that she can flip a switch to turn on the ruthlessness, because those little reminders have been there since she came back into his life with a pair of electrified handcuffs. It scares him, too, that she's moved past it, that she was so willing to torture him to get Joshua back and now she'll turn that same protectiveness on anyone who tries to hurt him. There was a time that James would have done anything for him, too.

He tries to tell her that, that this job changes you, shapes you in a thousand little ways until you find yourself on the other side of the line you yourself drew, but she hasn't seen both sides yet. It's easy for her to see the world in black and white, where James lived in the gray. For Claudia, MacPherson was never James, was never someone with a first name and a first love and favorite books and theories about pocketwatches – he was only a villain.

Artie's always known that someday he might be the one on the other side of the line, and he thinks it just might break her.

He thinks maybe this did.

 

Everything he knows is secondhand, and what isn't from Mrs. Frederic comes from reports. Nobody else has brought it up, and he hasn't asked. 

He walks the floor of the Warehouse, to the IRS Quartum and the Bronze Sector to see if it jogs anything. It doesn't, but the Bronze Sectors smells like bleach. He wonders who cleaned it up. He wonders how long Leena was here, alone. How long her blood puddled on the concrete without anyone even knowing she was in trouble.

It was probably Myka who cleaned it up. She has the eye for detail and steady nerves to have both thought of it and done it. Pete can roll up his sleeves and get down to business when he needs to, but this, this is too close for him. He's too protective of the Warehouse and everyone in it.

Artie thinks of the row of artifacts sitting on the desk in his office, waiting to be sorted and categorized. He thinks of how many of the artifacts on the shelves Leena inventoried, how many she walked past and straightened and touched. The way she made sweet tea. The way she wasn't an agent.

The smell of bleach lingers, even when he goes back to his office.

 

Artie's arm may be in a sling, but he's not an invalid. And besides, especially in recent years, that shoulder has taken more than its fair share of abuse, and he's grown quite talented at working around it.

That doesn't stop Claudia from grabbing anything that she deems is too far away from him and passing it to him – papers, his mug of coffee, the keyboard, anything. When he goes to check the sensors in the IRS Quartum, they're already repaired, and more alarmingly, they're _only_ repaired, with nary an upgrade. She brings food every time she comes from the B &B, and "just happens" to forget it when she goes back.

What astonishes Artie is how _angrily_ she manages to do all this. Every motion is matter-of-fact, each absent "thank you" is met with an "it's just a mug, jeeze," and she never stays in his presence for longer than she has to. His first few days back, she'd alternated between being tentative and trying too hard, but he's apparently managed to wear down her patience by trying to give her space – and, honestly, to take some for himself.

He doesn't say anything, because he has no idea what to say. Not just to her, but to any of them. Life goes on, but everything that used to be effortless is suddenly a minefield, and they don't talk about it. Or at least, not with him.

He's almost grateful for it. He doesn't know what he'd say, and he dreads to think about what they'd say. 

The memories he does have are dim and distant, impressions and images. There aren't many, but the clearest must have been right after the orchid was released: the sound of Claudia's sobbing, the briefest feeling of her hair against the palm of his hand, trying so hard to tell her it was okay, everything would be okay.

It's a strange, small thing, but – she hasn't once tried to touch him since he was released from the hospital. She's been helpful and hovering and brings new meaning to phrase "underfoot," albeit with added passive-aggression, but the casual fistbumps, shoulderbumps, hands on his shoulder, and, yes, even the hugs are gone. Worse, she won't meet his eyes with anything less than carefully-cultivated blankness over strata of emotion he can't begin to classify. 

And Artie has no idea what he did to make her act this way.

 

Pete and Steve are the easiest to deal with. For someone who often ends up playing the role of action-hero-of-the-week on cases, Pete is surprisingly conflict-avoidant. Give him an excuse to pretend everything's okay and he'll take it. 

He's still subdued, at least for him. Granted, it's hard to be excited about inventory and shelving, and since the destruction of the IRS Quartum there's a lot of both to be done, but at least around Artie, his jokes are forced, few and far between.

Steve is above all else a pragmatist. He was before he died, when he signed up for a sting operation that could turn his team against him and involved not only risking his life but standing and watching an enemy agent be tortured, and he still is. On top of that, he's closer to Claudia, and the way he sticks to her while they're at the Warehouse makes Artie wonder about how well she's maintaining her facade back at the B&B.

Myka, though. Myka glances at him sideways when she thinks he isn't looking. She grasps his hand, quickly but tightly, when she hands him a file. She looks at him and says nothing, but he knows what she's trying to say because it's a conversation they've had before: she's saying, "I'm not okay, and you're not okay, and if you want to talk about it, I'll talk about it with you."

He doesn't want to talk about it.

 

There was a funeral. He missed it. Apparently being stabbed in the chest and infected with Sweating Sickness really takes it out of you, to say the least.

Leena's buried in one of the local cemeteries. Artie's been there before – with Leena, even. He's buried a lot of people in that cemetery, stood to one side and watched a coffin lowered into shadows more times than he can keep track of. 

He knows he should visit her grave, but between filing reports and managing the reconstruction of the IRS Quartum and keeping the pings organized for when any of them are ready for an actual case, there's not a lot of time to leave the Warehouse.

 

"You have a ping."

Artie's arm jerks with surprise, nearly dropping his chin from where it rests in his hand. He catches himself, and takes a breath to steady himself before he turns around. Mrs. Frederic is standing in the middle of his office, looking immaculate and immovable as always.

"I know," he says. "I'll deal with it."

"Like you've dealt with the last ten?"

Artie snags the frame of his glasses with his fingers, scrubbing across his face with the palm of his hand, and begins rattling off reasons. "The IRS Quartum still needs rebuilding, all of the artifacts that were disturbed by the explosion need shelving, the security system needs an upgrade – "

"And does all that require five agents?" says Mrs. Frederic.

"I don't think any of us are at the top of our game at the moment," says Artie, his patience fraying. "I'm not sending anyone out into the field until I'm sure they're up for it."

"Is that why you're keeping them so close by?" says Mrs. Frederic. "Truly?"

Artie hesitates. He's being selfish. He knows he's being selfish. He's been selfish since this all started, since he used the astrolabe the first time. He can say he was trying to save the world all he wants, and it has the benefit of being partially true, but when he held the astrolabe up in front of him, he wasn't thinking about the Ytterbium Chamber or the loss of hope or the loss of the Warehouse. He was thinking of H.G., with a smile blotted out by fire; of Mrs. Frederic, who was lost with the Warehouse; of Claudia, buried in a wall to wait for her air to turn stale; of Myka, buying them time by baiting the police in a hopeless, rioting world, and who knows how _that_ turned out; and of Pete, whose last breaths were laden with his own blood.

He hadn't realized he was trading Leena's life for theirs.

And now he's keeping them close to home, even though that's the only reason they were targeted in the first place.

Mrs. Frederic pulls a chair closer to his desk and sits in it. "You've been on the other side of this conversation before, Arthur. I think you know what I'm going to say."

Artie puts his glasses back on, straightening them across his face. "That I don't need to talk to you, but I need to talk to someone."

"It doesn't have to be any of us," says Mrs. Frederic, opening her purse. She pulls out a business card and holds it up. "Do you remember Alicia Cardozo?"

Artie does. Alicia was on the forefront of criminal profiling when she was recruited for the Warehouse at the ripe young age of twenty-three, in the early nineties. She'd loved James's oatmeal Scotchies, insisted on her name's pronunciation (ah- _lee_ -see-ah, she'd say, not ah-lee-shah), and brewed the best coffee of any agent he'd ever worked with. He'd never figured out her secret. 

Her sixth mission had been to recover Agatha Christie's necklace, which caused eleven-day blackouts and, apparently, homicidal fugue states. Artie and James had been on another mission at the time – he can't even remember what they were after. They'd returned to the Warehouse to find three bodies and an amnesiac, blood-soaked Cardozo sleeping on the couch with her gun still in her hand. She didn't find out what she'd done until they woke her up. Nobody had protested her early retirement to open a private psychiatric practice working with trauma survivors.

Pete and Myka say the only way to leave the Warehouse is feet-first, and to a certain extent, Artie thinks it's true. Even the ones who get out aren't the same people they were before.

"I remember every agent I've worked with," says Artie. "You're sending me to a therapist?"

"No," says Mrs. Frederic, putting the card on his desk between them. "But under the circumstances, she is uniquely qualified to discuss recent events, should you choose to speak with her."

So she's sending him to a therapist. Great.

"There was...another matter that I wished to discuss with you," Mrs. Frederic says, with a hesitancy that doesn't bode well at all. "As you're likely aware, circumstances have changed somewhat since you first came to the Warehouse."

A feeling not unlike dread curls in the pit of Artie's stomach.

"Your former Soviet handler is no longer a factor, and your identity as Artie Nielson hasn't been secure since MacPherson compromised it and a warrant was issued for your arrest," Mrs. Frederic continues. "Under the circumstances, it would appear that you're no longer a target. Certain avenues might be available to you now that weren't available to you when you joined the Warehouse."

"Like forced retirement," says Artie, his voice dead.

"No," says Mrs. Frederic, her syllables turning crisp. "I assure you, as long as I am caretaker of this Warehouse, nobody will force you to retire. But," she adds, her voice gentler, "neither will anyone force you to stay."

Artie looks down at his keyboard. He stays silent for a long moment, and then says, "They're not ready yet."

"No," Mrs. Frederic agrees, and she sounds almost sad. "They never are."

 

Leena joined the Warehouse shortly after James's first, and faked, death. She took over the B&B from its previous owner, Ursula, who retired at 60 and died of a stroke six years later. Ursula had kept the B&B looking downright Victorian, with leather and velvet upholstery and richly stained wood furniture. Leena, on the other hand, decided that Artie was too grumpy and began painting him canvas after canvas of puppies: tiny Golden Labs climbing over each other in a basket, a droopy Basset Hound with a carefully-rendered bow around its neck, fluffy Bernese Mountain puppies chewing on each other's tails. 

She kept doing it, too, even years later. Whenever she thought Artie was being a little too, well, _Artie_ , the canvasses would start making their way into his bag. She always knew when he needed it, or at least when he would've needed it if receiving paintings of puppies had any effect whatsoever, and every time he lost his temper and demanded why, she'd just smile and say the improvement in his aura was thanks enough.

He has a stack of paintings in storage underneath his bed, because they had to go somewhere. He comes across them when he's looking for a component of the alarm system, and it staggers him all of a sudden. Leena will never paint him any more puppies. Leena will never chide him for shelving artifacts with interacting auras too close together. Leena will never draw the blinds open to let in more sunlight, or pull a Danish out of his hands, or win an argument with him when he doesn't want to admit he's wrong, because Leena is dead because he shot her.

She tried to help him, and he scared her, and he shot her, and he doesn't even remember it. He left her alone to bleed to death, and he can't even do her the dignity of remembering it.

He leans his head against his mattress, sitting on the floor by his bed, and he stays there for a long, long time.

 

When he wakes up the next morning, it's been five days since he came back to the Warehouse and almost two weeks since Leena died. He can't wrap his head around those two weeks. It feels like just yesterday and forever ago at the same time.

He hasn't been sleeping well. Not only does his chest ache – he won't take any painkillers – but when he does manage to fall asleep, he has nightmares. Some of them are not unfamiliar, mishmashes of various artifact-induced horrors with the rest of the team, like Claudia curled up on the couch, blanketed in bloodstains and holding the dagger, or Pete coughing and choking on Phoenix-induced ash.

The worst ones are closer to reality. Near-misses and barely-averted disaster. Waking up is a relief and going back to sleep is impossible, so at five o'clock he gives up on trying.

When he comes downstairs, Myka's sitting at his desk, perusing his papers. She turns around when he reaches the bottom of the stairs, and he sees a Twizzlers in her hand – it's an old habit that he hadn't realized she had picked back up. 

"I made pancakes," she says, and points to a tupperware on the counter of his kitchenette.

"It's five o'clock in the morning," he says.

"You're up too," she says, and he goes to get the pancakes.

The container's still warm and there's misty condensation on the inside of the lid. At least Myka hasn't been here long.

"I find it somewhat unlikely that you're here to get a jump start on inventory," he says, finding a fork. All of the silverware is clean, even though he hasn't done any dishes since before. Probably Claudia, striking again.

"About that," says Myka. "We have pings. Plural."

Artie sits down at the table. If Myka wants to talk to him, let her move. "We also have inventory. We'll get to the pings."

"People are dying," says Myka.

If Artie had enough energy to summon up some rancor, he would say people die every day. But he doesn't, and this is Myka, so instead he says, "Do you really think any of us are on our A-game right now? You go out there when you're not at your best and people could get hurt."

"We might get back to our A-game sooner if we weren't going stir-crazy," says Myka, watching him levelly.

"Not a chance I'm willing to take." He opens the container and frowns at the pancakes. "Are these chocolate chip?"

"Maybe," says Myka.

Artie frowns, and sniffs the pancake. "With _lime_?"

Myka's upper lip tugs downward guiltily. "We had to use them for something."

Artie's fork hovers above the pancake, and then he puts it down and meets Myka's eyes. "Are you? Going stir-crazy?"

Myka looks down at the Twizzlers in her hand. "Pete is," she says. "You know how he is – he needs to _do_ something. Steve too, but he won't say it. Claudia..."

Artie's grip tightens around the fork.

"She mostly plays her guitar around the B&B, so you might not have noticed," Myka says, "but the happier she is, the more obscure the music is that she plays."

"How obscure is her music right now?"

Myka's mouth tightens into a humorless smile. "She's started playing Glee covers."

Artie puts his head in his unslung hand. "God help us."

"I think she thinks you've been avoiding her," says Myka, and she's back to staring at her Twizzlers. "I think, maybe, that we all do."

Artie doesn't say anything.

"Do you remember," Myka continues, when it's clear he's not going to say anything, "that time you told me that anytime I wanted to talk about losing someone on the job, you'd talk about it?"

Now Artie stares at her. "You mean after we got Joshua back from Rheticus's compass?"

"Yes!" says Myka. "Exactly."

"Over _three years ago_?"

Myka meets his gaze, and presses her lips together in a moment's hesitation before she says, "I don't know what else to do right now."

Artie keeps still, and Myka finally gets up from his desk to join him at the table. "I thought if we could just make it through, then everything would be okay, but we're on the other side of it now and I still don't know how to just keep going." She takes a deep breath, and adds, "And I don't think you do, either."

Artie looks down. His pancakes are still untouched on the table.

"So I just wanted to say that – that none of this matters, okay?" Myka reaches across and covers his hand with hers. "After everything we've been through, there's nothing you can say or do, artifact or no artifact, that would make us stop caring about you. We're too far gone for that. We're _family_. You might drive us nuts, or – or even hurt us, but we're not going anywhere, and we're here for you."

Artie swallows, hard, and when he risks a glance up, he sees that Myka's eyes are shining. He turns his hand over, so that they're palm-to-palm, and tightens his fingers around hers. He gets a weak, watery smile in return.

Then something she said catches up with him. "Nothing I could say?"

Myka's smile falters. "What?"

"You said nothing I could say or do." Myka doesn't move her hand, but her smile is gone, and her face is setting with resignation and dread. "Myka," he says. "What did I say?"

She clears her throat. "You were just trying to distract us. It doesn't matter - "

"If it didn't matter, you would just tell me," he says. "What did I _say_?"

Myka sighs, and squeezes Artie's hand. "It was at the museum," she says. "You said – or the other Artie said that – that you didn't want us in your life. That you didn't want the Warehouse in your life."

Myka can be a wonderful liar when she wants to be, and when she has preparation. She is doing an absolutely terrible job of it right now. "What else?" says Artie.

She clears her throat, and after a deep breath, lets everything out in one go. "You said that Pete was a bad decision away from the bottle, and that you didn't want to be a substitute father figure when he should've saved his dad."

The museum – "But Pete was at the museum."

"Yeah," says Myka, and she looks exhausted. "Yeah, he was."

If anyone else had said that to Pete, Artie would've made sure they paid. For a moment, Artie hates himself so much he can't breathe. But Myka still isn't meeting his eyes.

"You were at the museum, too," he says, forcing out each word.

Myka nods shallowly, and says, "You said I'd end up alone."

That breathtaking anger is back. Once it subsides, he squeezes her hand and says, "Shows how much I know. We're stuck with each other, right?" Myka looks up, and he adds, "I'm not going anywhere, either."

 

Apparently today everyone else is running as early as Myka. Artie spends an hour in the Archives researching one of the pings before he thinks any of the others will show up. When he emerges, his fork and tupperware for the pancakes are soaking in the sink, Steve's jacket is hanging on one of the chairs next to the table, and the toolbox Pete's been using to dismantle what's left of the shelves in the IRS Quartum is gone. Since Myka went straight to work inventorying after their talk, that means he's four for four on agents.

After a moment's deliberation, he pulls out his copy of all the mission briefings on the most recent situation and sits down to reread them. The first time had been for information, to find even the skeleton of what had happened. This time, he's looking for what's _not_ in the reports.

Other than HG's entire report. She hasn't turned it in yet, but God knows where she is now anyway.

He pieces it together. It's practically a chess game to keep track of where everyone was at each moment in the mill, but Claudia's story of being in hot pursuit leaves time for a one-on-one conversation. Based on what Myka said, that could explain a lot. 

But he still doesn't know what he said to her. Whatever it was clearly had an effect, based on the way she's been un-Claudia-like ever since and her apparent tendency towards overwrought pop music recently.

He shuts all the folders and replaces them under the stacks of other papers, where out of sight will hopefully mean out of mind. His hand hovers over the file he started preparing for one of the pings, for an artifact that seems more harmless than the others – a high school in Arlington, Virginia, where both the faculty and the students have been getting unusually physically demonstrative that he's pretty sure is a false positive – but he leaves it on the desk. He's being selfish, keeping them close, but every time he closes his eyes he smells bleach and hears the sound of Pete choking on his own blood. 

It's times like this that he misses James. Eventual descent into megalomania and sociopathy notwithstanding, James had always been Artie's perfect sounding board: no tolerance for self-pity, practical advice, and somehow he just always knew what Artie was thinking. By year three of their partnership they'd been finishing each other's sentences and correcting misspoken minutiae. By year thirteen, they'd been nearly unstoppable. Then...well. Artie had done his best since then to convince himself that he didn't need a partner, and, somehow, he'd ended up with a family instead.

He checks through the periscope to make sure, and there Pete is, working on the shelves in the IRS Quartum. Steve is more likely to know what Artie said to Claudia, but Artie knows what he said to Pete, and the sooner he can deal with that, the better.

The IRS Quartum is a mess, but it's less of a mess than it was before Pete started. Pete himself is halfway up a ladder, purple gloves on, emptying a shelf of the charred remains of artifacts.

"Hey Pete," says Artie. "Pete. _Pete_."

Pete finally looks down, and snags an earbud out of his ear with one finger. "Oh hey, Artie, I didn't see you there."

"It's a good thing we didn't hire you for your keen powers of observation. Oh, _wait_ ," says Artie, and something in Pete's face shifts, his guard dropping just a little bit. Artie's not sure why until he realizes that his interactions with all four of them, really, up until now have been perfunctory and professional, at least compared to his usual approach of gruffness and sarcasm. "Do you have a sec?"

Pete hops down from the ladder without a second's hesitation. "Yeah, man, of course. What's up?"

Artie clears his throat. "I'm just – how's Claudia? I mean, I see her around here, but that's – it's not quite..."

Artie trails off because Pete's nodding, his hands going on his hips in an attentive and understanding pose. "Yeah," Pete says, slowly. "Yeah, it's been rough on everyone, you know?"

"I know," says Artie. "I know, but." He looks at Pete, trying to collect his thoughts, and finally says, "Mrs. Frederic told you that I don't actually...remember any of what happened?"

"Yeah," says Pete, and his guard is definitely back up. "She mentioned it, yeah."

"Has Claudia said if I said anything to her? About – anything?" Artie says.

Pete shakes his head. "No, but you know Claudia – if it's something serious, she'll play it pretty close to the vest."

Artie looks at Pete and thinks, _she's not the only one_. He says, "Look, Myka mentioned that – that I might have said some things - "

"Anything said or done under whammy doesn't count," says Pete immediately. He half-crosses his arms in front of him, then spreads them again, like an umpire declaring 'safe.' "Don't even worry about it. Otherwise I'd still have to give Myka grief for that time she tried to eat me."

"Grief like that time you changed her ringtone to 'Maneater'?" says Artie, and Pete tilts his head back with a sunny smile.

"Yeah, that was pretty great," he says.

It is seriously tempting to succumb to Pete's reluctance to talk about feelings, but Artie still remembers Pete dying in his arms. That Pete could think Artie didn't care is – it's unthinkable. "Pete," he says, and when he has Pete's attention, all he can think of to say is, "I'm glad you're okay."

It doesn't capture everything he wants to say: That Pete is one of the finest agents that Artie has been lucky enough to work with, that he knows Pete always has his back, that his stupid jokes and puns and quotes may be annoying as hell but Artie wouldn't trade them for anything, that he can see how much Pete belongs at the Warehouse and just seeing that makes it feel more like home.

But Artie's known Pete long enough to know that that kind of talk would get an automatic dismissal as Too Many Feelings, and 'I'm glad you're okay' is as close as Artie can get to 'I'm glad you're not dead' without having to have a much longer discussion about What Artie Did On His Day That He Erased From Existence.

This gets a rare moment of seriousness from Pete anyway when he answers, "I'm glad you're okay, too."

Artie clears his throat before he can succumb to sentimentality. "Right! Well. Good talk."

"Yep, good talk," Pete agrees, and thankfully, that's the end of it.

 

Artie goes back upstairs to his office and goes straight into the Archives. If he's sure this touchy-feely-high-school thing is a false positive, it might be a good first case back for Pete and Myka. Arlington's just across the river from DC, so they'll be on familiar territory, and if the worst thing that can happen to them is getting hugged - 

"Artie? Are you in here?"

Artie turns and freezes. "Vanessa?"

Vanessa steps further into the Archives, doctor's bag in one hand. "Myka said I'd probably find you in here."

"I – yes," says Artie. "Here I am."

"Here you are," Vanessa agrees. "It's time for your stitches to come out."

"Right," says Artie. "The stitches, right." He's sitting on the floor, surrounded by books, and he hauls himself up. Vanessa takes a step closer, but he's on his feet before she's close enough to help him up. They walk to the clean room that doubles as the Warehouse's infirmary in silence, but when they get there, Vanessa has to help him out of his shirt and vest. 

The wound looks raw and red against his skin, particularly with the neat white line from the Masamune just above it, but it's closed and the scabs are already beginning to peel away.

Vanessa's gloved hand briefly traces the Masamune scar. "This shoulder has bad luck," she murmurs.

"This is the stabbing shoulder," says Artie. "The other one's the gunshot wound shoulder. Keeps things organized." 

Vanessa's smile is small and sad, and she carefully presses the flat edge of the scissors against his skin to cut the stitches. Artie waits, and tries not to flinch as she carefully pulls the threads out of his flesh. It doesn't hurt, but it's a strange tugging that's always bothered him more than actually getting injured in the first place. 

Vanessa's working on the last stitch when Artie says, on as little breath as possible to not move his chest, "I'm waiting for you to say 'I told you so.'"

Vanessa doesn't even pause what she's doing, but she says, "Well, I did, but that's not important."

Artie cuts off a huff of a laugh as she pulls out the last stitch. She drops it into the trash can and turns back to Artie. Their faces are very, very close. 

"Are you okay?" she asks, her voice quiet.

Artie thinks about it for a moment, and then says, "I have no idea."

Vanessa cups Artie's face with one hand in a swift movement, as though she can't stop herself, and Artie uses his good hand to cover it and hold it there. 

"You were right," he says. "It was a truly terrible idea."

Vanessa's smile is pained, but she says, "And here I am."

 

The terrible fact of the matter is that, from a purely personnel standpoint, Leena will have to be replaced. It's unlikely that they'll find someone with her way with the artifacts, but someone will have to take over the B&B, and the Warehouse could always use another set of hands. Even with Steve's arrival, they're undermanned compared to when Artie started. Agnes, his predecessor as Person Generally In Charge, had had a knack for keeping the Warehouse staffed, even when agents kept dying off, disappearing, or otherwise going out of commission (which is to say, evil or insane). Artie had inherited her desk, but he never had the same fortitude that she did for sending agents out to die, and it was so easy to stop filling positions as they opened up.

He's pretty sure Mrs. Frederic knew what he was doing. Agents who never worked at the Warehouse, after all, would never die horribly in the line of duty. Or at least, not because of him.

Even so, some agents lasted longer than others. There was a period of about four years, just before Pete and Myka joined the Warehouse, where none of the agents lasted more than about nine months. Artie hadn't been sure how long Pete or Myka would last, either. He's still not sure. Selfishly, he hopes they outlast him. He's tired of losing people.

But he's beginning to realize that he's more tired of being afraid of losing people.

 

He stays in the Archives for most of the day. The high school case file comes together quickly, and there's another case that looks promising. Annie Jump Cannon's magnifying glass, reported to dramatically increase pattern-recognition abilities, has been sighted in California. The magnifying glass causes long-lasting – though hopefully not permanent – deafness, so Pete and Myka would be a natural choice. Claudia and Steve would probably have fun with the touchy-feely high school, too.

The Jump Cannon casefile is almost complete by the time Artie realizes he should probably think about eating something, and when he emerges into his office, Steve is sitting at his desk, reading through the pings.

"What, is my desk public property now? Should I put in a park bench?" says Artie, and Steve jumps.

"Sorry! Sorry, I didn't think - I was just waiting for you." He pushes out of Artie's desk chair and takes a few steps away for good measure.

"Well," says Artie, "here I am. What do you want?"

"Uh," says Steve, peering at Artie. "How's your shoulder?"

"Fine," says Artie shortly, reclaiming his desk chair. "Was there something in particular you wanted, or are you just here to bother me in general?"

"There was something," Steve says, but he's staring at Artie like he's just had a realization. Artie raises his eyebrows, and Steve shakes his head to clear it. "Sorry, sorry, it's just – you look a lot better than you have."

Artie looks down at himself. He thinks he looks pretty normal, at least enough so that he didn't feel the need to clean himself up before letting Vanessa come near his stitches. "Is that a compliment or an insult?"

"No, I mean – happier," says Steve. "Uh, anyway, I just wanted to talk to you without anyone else around. About Claudia."

Artie lets the case files fall onto his desk and gives Steve his full attention. "Claudia?"

"She's been a little..." Steve trails off, his face scrunching in an eloquent expression of discomfort and concern.

"Playing Glee covers?" suggests Artie, and Steve sighs.

"You heard about that?"

"Apparently it's a problem," says Artie.

Steve scratches the back of his head. "She won't talk to me about it. She usually at least talks to me about things, you know?"

"She hasn't said anything?"

Steve shakes his head. "Some of it I can just guess, like the..." He gestures vaguely at Artie, who raises his eyebrows in expectation.

"Like the...?" he prompts.

"The whole..." Steve mimics stabbing, and Artie briefly wonders if Steve will manage to finish a sentence in this conversation. "...thing."

"Ah," says Artie, glancing down at his sling. "That thing."

"I know I'm still kind of the new guy, and there might be some history that I'm missing, but I get the impression that this is Claudia's first..." Steve clears his throat. "I mean, there was her parents, but she was so young – and she got Joshua back, and – well, and me, too..."

"You think this is her first losing battle," says Artie, mulling it over.

Steve shrugs. "It happens to all of us, but this is...kind of a doozy."

"That's an understatement," says Artie. He realizes that he's running the fingers of his free hand over the seam of his sling, and forces his arm down. "I'll talk to her."

"I think it would make a difference," says Steve. He perches himself on the edge of the table, and Artie narrows his eyes at him.

"Was there anything else?" says Artie, pointedly.

Steve looks at Artie for a long moment. "I think I get it now."

"Get what?"

"Why Myka left," says Steve.

Artie thinks for a second, and it clicks into place. "This was your first averted Apocalypse on the job, wasn't it?"

"It's a little concerning how easily you said 'first,'" says Steve.

Artie braces himself, and says, "Well? Think you're up to it?"

Steve's nod is slow but automatic, as though he doesn't even have to think about it. "I guess I'm lucky," he says. "I get why Myka left, but - I also know that she came back, and I think I get that, too." His mouth twists into a smile. "I guess it's like having an older sibling to make all the mistakes you get to learn from."

 

Artie sleeps poorly that night. At three in the morning, he considers taking one of the sleeping pills that Vanessa had left with him, but he has yet to find a sleeping pill or painkiller that doesn't give him vivid dreams, and that is by far the last thing he needs right now.

Instead, he lays in bed for another two hours until it's at least a somewhat respectable time to get up, gets dressed, and goes downstairs to wait for Claudia.

With the exception of Myka's early-morning visit, Claudia's been the first to the Warehouse every morning since Artie came back. Artie's theory is that this is because Myka, Steve, and Pete have morning workouts or runs, while Claudia's exercise regimen consists of ridiculous dancing through the Warehouse, ridiculous acrobatics in the name of getting to hard-to-reach components of the Warehouse computer system, toning her thumbs by playing Fruit Ninja, and, of course, occasionally running for her life.

Today is no exception. Claudia comes through the door around six o'clock, while Artie is halfway through looking into flights from Rapid City to Reagan National Airport.

"You're up early," he says, and she drops her coat on the back of a chair.

"So are you," she says, beginning to roll up her sleeves. "And you're...here."

Artie glances around the room. "Where else would I be?"

Claudia shrugs, and moves on to the other sleeve. "I don't know, wherever you've been hanging out for the past week?"

Artie recognizes this mood. This is Claudia's 'I don't want to talk' mood.

Well, tough.

"Claudia," he says, standing up from the desk. Claudia ignores him, crossing over to the sink and starting the water. "Claudia. _Claudia_."

"What? I'm listening. Girl geniuses can multitask." She grabs the sponge and wets it, pulling a dish closer with her free hand. 

"I just wanted to say – do you really have to do that now?" says Artie, venturing closer despite his irritation.

Claudia glares at him. "I'm doing your dishes. Some gratitude would not go amiss."

Artie reins in his exasperation, with great effort. "Claudia, I just wanted to say – thank you."

" _That's_ what I'm talking about," says Claudia. "See? Was that so hard?"

"No, not for the dishes," says Artie. "I mean, thank you for the dishes too, but I wanted to say thank you for – for everything you did."

Claudia stops halfway through a scrub, and very carefully sets the dish and sponge back down in the sink. Then she turns towards Artie, her face tight with – Artie can't quite tell what. "You mean for stabbing you in the chest? Are you seriously thanking me for _stabbing you in the chest_?"

"As you might recall, there were somewhat exigent circumstances," says Artie, and he's definitely being defensive now. He can't help it – he can't for the life of him figure out why Claudia sounds so _angry_. "You did what you had to - "

"Don't you dare," says Claudia, her voice now shaking with emotion. "Don't even try that 'you did what you had to do' crap. I know what you're really trying to say, and _no_ , everything is _not_ okay, so don't even try."

Oh, God. How did Artie not see this coming? "Claudia - "

"Leena's dead," Claudia continues ragged, "the world nearly ended - _again_ \- I stabbed you, and you weren't even you and you nearly died and now you're standing here _thanking_ me?"

"Claudia," says Artie, putting his free hand on her elbow.

She pulls away, and wipes at her cheek with disgusted, impatient movements. "None of this is even in the same _world_ as okay, so stop patronizing me - "

"Hey, hey, _hey_ ," says Artie, louder and louder until Claudia lets him talk. "I know. I know that everything is terrible right now. But you _did_ do what you had to do, and it saved me – maybe not my life, but _who I am_ , and that's even more important. And then you helped save the world, and you were a damn good agent while you were out there, and – all right, there's no way to say this without sounding patronizing, but I am so incredibly proud of you. And I - " His voice breaks, just a little. "I can't tell you how lucky I feel to have you in my life." He takes a deep breath, to try to steady himself. "I know that it's hard, but it's going to be okay. It might take a while, but Claudia, I promise you, I _promise_ you, everything is going to be okay."

He squeezes her elbow, and she takes a step closer to him, then another, and he pulls her against his good shoulder, wrapping his free arm around her as much as he can. His hand goes on the back of her neck, pressing against her hair, and she starts crying in earnest, her breaths shuddery and uncontrolled against the collar of his shirt. 

"It's going to be okay," he says, "it's going to be okay," over and over again until he almost believes it, too.

Eventually Claudia's all cried out, and if Artie's face is damp too, there's nobody else around to see it. Artie lets her just keep breathing against his shirt, his hand rubbing small circles at the base of her neck. It's an amazing thing, how it's easier to be strong for her. 

Eventually Artie says, "So I heard you're playing Glee music now?"

Claudia laughs wetly, and pulls away from Artie, wiping the tears away with care – the backs of her index fingers brush lightly against her lower eyelashes. "God, who ratted me out?"

"The concern seems fairly widespread," says Artie diplomatically.

"It's not my fault that Glee sometimes does a halfway-decent song," says Claudia, with an almighty sniff. "I mean, Fleetwood Mac? That's not Glee, that's just _good_."

"If you say so," says Artie, and Claudia shakes her head.

"Just for that, I'm playing nothing but Journey until Pete breaks."

Artie smiles, and can't help but ruffle her hair. The smile she gives him in return is more genuine than he's seen on her in weeks.

He gives her one last pat on the head, and says, "Well, back to work. No inventory today."

Claudia exaggerates a blink. "What, seriously?"

"Yeah, we've done enough inventory for now," says Artie. "Go on back to – to the B&B. I'll meet you there."

"You sure you don't want to come with?" says Claudia, eying the sling. "Are you even allowed to drive?"

"I'm perfectly capable of driving with one arm in a sling, thank you," says Artie. "I've just got a couple of things to take care of first, but I'll be right there. _Go_ ," he adds, and she holds up her hands.

"Going, going, jeez." She grabs her jacket, but pauses in the doorway to the Umbilicus. "It's good to see Grumpy McCrankypants is back."

"Get off my lawn," he calls after her.

 

Leena's grave site is new and tidy and covered in Astroturf. Leena took great pride in keeping her lawn naturally green, and Artie knows the line of lurid green fake grass against the August-yellow South Dakota grass would drive her crazy, or at least make her purse her lips, which for her was almost the same thing.

He puts a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers next to the canvas of the Golden Lab puppies.

"I figured you could use some company," he says, his voice hoarse. "This is the only one you're getting. I'm keeping the rest for rainy days." 

He puts a hand on the grave stone, and finally makes himself say, "I'm really going to miss you." It takes even longer to say, "I'm so sorry."

 

He doesn't get out of the car right away, because the sign for the B&B still says "Leena's" across it in big letters. He swallows, hard. He remembers when it said "Ursula's," when his room was next to James's, when it housed Gus and Hugo and Cardozo and Agnes and so many others. He wonders if one day he'll lose himself in nostalgia thinking of Myka and Pete and Claudia and Steve. 

He tells himself it doesn't matter. He knows where they are now, and that's what's important.

He gathers up the case files and makes his way into the B&B. Trailer catches him at the door, his tail wagging wildly, and he follows Artie into the dining area on the patio. Claudia's plan appears to have backfired – from not nearly far enough away, he can hear the dulcet tones of her and Pete singing a duet of Don't Stop Believing. The warm smell of something baking hangs in the air, and as he drops his bag into a chair in front of the dining room table, Pete comes in from the kitchen, a plate of biscuits in one hand and a song unfortunately not only in his heart.

" _Hold onto that feel_ \- Artie!" he says, and then his face lights up even more. "Pings?"

"Pings," Artie confirms, putting the case files on the table. Then he raises his voice, so Myka, Claudia, and Steve can hear him, too. "Gather round, children," he calls. "We've got work to do."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Ari and Rachel for betaing! 
> 
> I do not own Glee, Fleetwood Mac, Don't Stop Believing, or Fruit Ninja. Or, for that matter, Warehouse 13 or anything else you might recognize.
> 
> This was written for the "Amnesia" square of Trope Bingo 2013.


End file.
